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Thread: Exercise Can Make Your Brain a Decade 'Younger' Than Your Calendar Age - Dr Mercola

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    Exercise Can Make Your Brain a Decade 'Younger' Than Your Calendar Age - Dr Mercola

    Story at-a-glance

    • Exercise improves memory and cognition, and helps stave off dementia. Strength training — and working your leg muscles in particular — has been shown to have a particularly strong impact on brain function and memory
    • Among seniors, engaging in medium-to-high intensity exercise can slow brain aging by as much as 10 years
    • Exercise also helps dispel depression — in many cases more effectively than antidepressants — and purges your body of stress chemicals associated with stress-related depression


    By Dr. Mercola

    If you want to protect your cognitive health as you age, or even improve your memory and brain function, exercise should be at the top of your to-do list. Compelling evidence shows exercise improves memory and cognition, and helps stave off dementia.

    For example, a 2010 study1 on primates revealed that regular exercise helped the monkeys learn new tasks twice as quickly as non-exercising monkeys, and researchers believe this might hold true for people as well. Other studies support such possibilities.

    Strength training — and working your leg muscles in particular2,3,4,5 — has been shown to have a particularly strong impact on brain function and memory. In one study,6,7 just 20 minutes of leg strength exercises enhanced long-term memory by about 10 percent.
    Exercise Significantly Slows Rate of Brain Aging

    According to a recent study8,9,10 published in the journal Neurology, physical activity can slow brain aging by as much as 10 years.

    Of the nearly 900 seniors who participated in the study, 90 percent engaged in light exercise such as yoga or walking, or none at all. The remaining 10 percent did medium-to-high intensity exercise. As reported by CBS News:11

    "[O]lder adults who reported either light or no exercise at all experienced a cognitive decline equal to 10 more years of aging when compared to people who were moderate to intense exercisers.

    'The number of people over the age of 65 in the United States is on the rise, meaning the public health burden of thinking and memory problems will likely grow,' study author Dr. Clinton B. Wright ... said in a statement.

    'Our study showed that for older people, getting regular exercise may be protective, helping them keep their cognitive abilities longer.'"

    How Exercise Protects and Improves Brain Function

    Previous research has demonstrated that exercise promotes brain health by releasing hormones like brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) from the muscles, which encourage the growth of new brain cells. This process is known as neurogenesis or neuroplasticity.

    Your brain's memory center (hippocampus) is particularly adaptable and capable of growing new cells throughout your entire lifetime, even into your 90s, provided your lifestyle supports it.

    In one study,12 exercising mice grew an average of 6,000 new brain cells in every cubic millimeter of hippocampal tissue sampled.

    Similarly, a year-long human study found that adults who exercised regularly enlarged their brain's memory center by 1 to 2 percent per year, where typically the hippocampus tends to shrink with age. Besides provoking beneficial hormone release, exercise also helps protect and improve your brain function by:

    http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fit...ain-aging.aspx

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